The Insect Trust Biography (Wikipedia)

The Insect Trust was an American jazz-based rock band that formed in New York in 1967.

The members of the band were Nancy Jeffries on vocals, Bill Barth on guitar, Luke Faust, formerly of the Holy Modal Rounders, on guitar, banjo, fiddle, and harmonica, Trevor Koehler on saxophone, and Robert Palmer (1945-1997) on clarinet and alto saxophone. Elvin Jones and Bernard Purdie both drummed with the group at times. Bill Falwell on bass and trumpet and Warren Gardner on trumpet and clarinet were part of the band by the time they recorded their second album.

According to The New York Times, the band took its name from William S. Burroughs's novel Naked Lunch, detailing a race of giant insects bent on world domination. However, according to Bill Barth, the name came from the poetry journal Insect Trust Gazette, published by William Levy. Levy took the name from Burroughs, Warren Gardner then gave it to the band.

Robert Palmer later became a well-respected and widely published rock critic and blues/jazz historian and served as the popular music editor of The New York Times in the 1980s. Nancy Jeffries became an executive at A&M, Virgin, and Elektra.